


So They All Rolled Over

by brinnanza



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-04
Updated: 2015-08-04
Packaged: 2018-04-12 23:06:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4498158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brinnanza/pseuds/brinnanza
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Move over,” McKay repeats, shuffling forward toward Sheppard’s infirmary bed. He waves a hand toward him, then winces at the pull in his injured shoulder. “Come on. If I pop these stitches pushing you out of the way, Jennifer will have my head.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	So They All Rolled Over

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt is "There's enough room for both of us" from a list of 100 ways to say "I love you". (Unbetaed)

Sheppard wakes suddenly to the sound of the curtain being yanked aside and McKay demanding, “Move over.”

McKay’s leaning heavily on his IV pole, and his complexion is ashy grey and far too pale. There’s a thick white bandage wrapped around his left hand and padding his shoulder, and a hundred little cuts pepper his face and arms. If Sheppard didn’t know better--and have the defibrillator burns to prove it--he’d think McKay was the one who’d nearly died.

“Huh?”

“Move over,” McKay repeats, shuffling forward toward Sheppard’s infirmary bed. He waves a hand toward him, then winces at the pull in his injured shoulder. “Come on. If I pop these stitches pushing you out of the way, Jennifer will have my head.”

It’s on the tip of his tongue to refuse, or at least to demand more of an explanation, but McKay’s face is all lines and shadows. His manner is gruff, full of his usual bluster, but his mouth is too tight, and there’s something unreadable in his eyes.

So Sheppard scoots to the edge of the tiny bed, and McKay climbs in next to him, using the IV stand as leverage. He arranges the blanket over both of them, then lies back down on his back, staring up at the ceiling. 

“Rodney--” Sheppard starts. He’s half off the bed, and his arm is pressed up alongside McKay’s uninjured one. Rodney gives off heat like a furnace, and Sheppard’s starting to think it’s not just the morphine making him dizzy.

McKay sighs. “Just go to sleep, Sheppard.”

It would be easy enough to let the drugs pull him under again, just accept this for whatever is and then never speak of it again. But Sheppard’s never been one for the easy path, so he shoves the drug-induced exhaustion away with an effort and turns his head to study McKay’s profile.

The medication, not to mention his various injuries, including a not-insignificant head injury, makes it hard to string his thoughts together in anything like a coherent fashion. Something niggles at the back of Sheppard’s head, big and unsaid, but when he tries to pin it down, it slips away like hot desert sand through his fingers.

“Rodney,” he prompts again, his voice a deeper drawl this time. He lets his head fall back against his pillow, eyes closed.

McKay blows out an exasperated breath then moves his hand to encircle Sheppard’s wrist under the blanket, his thumb pressed firmly over Sheppard’s pulse. Sheppard tries to lever himself up with his other hand, but that hurts too much, so he just looks over at McKay. The tension has gone out of his shoulders, and the anxious lines of his face have smoothed.

“I’m okay,” Sheppard says quietly.

“You weren’t,” says McKay.

Another time, somewhere other than in the dimly-lit infirmary pressed so close to McKay, Sheppard might have made a joke, something about reports of his death being greatly exaggerated. But the heart monitor beside the bed beeps steadily and there’s a slight whistle in Rodney’s breaths when he exhales and a morphine-induced drowsiness is pressing down on Sheppard’s limbs like a weight, so he just says, “Hey, move over. I’m gonna fall.”

McKay huffs out a breath that might be a laugh and wiggles over fractionally. Sheppard moves enough that he’s not in danger of tipping off of the bed as soon as he falls asleep.

There’s just enough room for both of them.


End file.
